For example I've converted my wife, parents, sister-in-law & a couple of friends to Mint but their not registered with this forum as any help or support they need means a call to me - and I'm sure most forum members here are in the same boat were they are 'the computer expert' to a handfull of people.

Also, Ubuntu forums exist for longer and that way they have probably accumulated many old user accounts that aren't used at all anymore, including users who have switched to another distro like Mint. That way comparing the number of forum users doesn't really make clear what the real number of users is.

Registered Linux User #528502Feel free to correct me if I'm trying to write in Spanish, French or German.

AlbertP wrote:Also, Ubuntu forums exist for longer and that way they have probably accumulated many old user accounts that aren't used at all anymore, including users who have switched to another distro like Mint. That way comparing the number of forum users doesn't really make clear what the real number of users is.

true

the best is to have a registration key / or some code like Clem did for Opera during his dealings with search engines. So that you can get better figures.

psql wrote:I started today to be a new user, I'm looking for a new distro(I'm going to stop using Ubuntu soon) I guess more people will do the same.

Since 10.10 is no longer supported,I'm testing distros right now. So far,Mint Debian appears to be my choice with Mate..But there is Xubuntu to look at as well,so time will tell. As for me,there is a small Linux forum I've gone to for years for friendship,friendly conversation and support.

I agree that only a fraction of mint users have forum accounts, but the number of accounts on the mint forums, while smaller than Ubuntu's numbers, are fairly significant compared to a lot of other distros. Also if you look at distrowatch (I know, I know, it's really not very accurate, although it's something), mint has had much larger numbers than Ubuntu since Mint 12 - for the six month span Mint's first with 4363 hits per day, and Ubuntu's second with 2077 hits per day, which is a significant margin that Mint has kept up for a while. I also completely agree with the statement that Mint just works, as opposed to Ubuntu which there are lots of problems with .

Edit: Ok, I feel kind of stupid, but 4700 active members in the Ubuntu forums are the number online, not the ones who have visited recently . (I took out that part)

If you want system on debian stable with XFCE, then try Saline OS. It has XFCE 4.6 though.

Only 20% of registered users are active. How many users have more than 50 posts, as compared to total number registered?

@cwwgateway Regarding the popularity, Ubuntu's ranking is shrinking, because of some obvious reasons.

Those who do not like UNITY and GNOME3 are actually well versed with Linux. So obviously they are aware of Linux Mint and Pinguy and other popular distros.

Ubuntu is backed by multi millionaire and has good base, so it is the first choice for most windows converts.

Ubuntu forums are listed on first page when googled something related to ubuntu. Distrowatch ranking as they have mentioned is just number of hits on that page. Since new Linux converts are not comfortable with Gnome 3 and UNITY, they are searching for alternative. Mint is shown and ubuntu alternative in almost all sites I have visited. So obviously, people migrating from Ubuntu will not click on ubuntu, and mint will be their new distro to be watched.

I know you have mentioned that distrowatch ranking is not accurate. What i want to say is not to depend upon distrowatch numbers.

Correct number is with the devs. They are aware of their userbase. You can find it at community home page.

I think one of the reasons would be that you install Mint and it works much more so, right away, than in other distros. One common reason to register in the Ubuntu forum, or other distros, is, of course, to get problems solved.

Mint seems to have much less such problems.

The other reason, of course, Ubuntu is older. Probably a better way to measure popularity is by the number of downloads.

There are probably a lot more Mint users than there are members on this forum. One good reason for this has already been mentioned: There are so few problems with Mint compared to other distros, that there are not much need for asking questions. I have tried a dozen Linux distros before ending up with Maya Mate, and after using it for two days I can do everything I need to do, without problems. The best thing is that Mint will do everything I do in Windows 7, and do it much better. The last bit of info I needed I found in this thread: Java is already installed, and I need that to access my bank account. It works just fine, thank you.

cwwgateway wrote:I agree that only a fraction of mint users have forum accounts, but the number of accounts on the mint forums, while smaller than Ubuntu's numbers, are fairly significant compared to a lot of other distros. Also if you look at distrowatch (I know, I know, it's really not very accurate, although it's something), mint has had much larger numbers than Ubuntu since Mint 12 - for the six month span Mint's first with 4363 hits per day, and Ubuntu's second with 2077 hits per day, which is a significant margin that Mint has kept up for a while. I also completely agree with the statement that Mint just works, as opposed to Ubuntu which there are lots of problems with .

Edit: Ok, I feel kind of stupid, but 4700 active members in the Ubuntu forums are the number online, not the ones who have visited recently . (I took out that part)

I don't care about numbers at ubuntuforums. Most of the posts are in "games".

Another reason comes to mind,.....it was ridiculously difficult to register. Took me about half a year of stubbornly trying. And I don't mean that I had to use some spammail to activate my account because my real e-mail address didn't work. I didn't even get to the point of sending out that activation mail for a long time. Instead I was trapped in some spam-filter. "The code is wrong"... No, it wasn't. "Number of tries per day are exhausted, try again later." Day after day, after week, after month. Tried with lots of different browsers, too. Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Midori... nothing worked. Until it magically did.

Then again, I'm using Linux for about ten years already and this is my first time bothering with a forum. Probably because I like the colors of the site.